Blue Genes - By Val McDermid Page 0,6

David Copperfield if he'd gone straight.

He flipped the book open in front of me. I stared at a modest granite slab, letters stuck on it like Letraset rather than incised in the stone. "This is the most basic model we offer," he said. "But even that is finest Scottish granite, quarried by traditional methods and hand-finished by our own craftsmen." He quoted a price that made my daily rate seem like buttons. He placed the file on my lap.

"Is that with or without the discount?" I asked.

"We always quote prices without discount, Mrs. Bar¬clay. So you're looking at a price that is twenty percent less than that. And if you want to go ahead and you're prepared to pay a cash deposit plus check for the full amount tonight, I am authorized to offer you a further five percent discount, making a total of one quarter less than the quoted price." His hand had moved to cover mine, gently patting it. .That was when the front door crashed open. "Careful with that bag, it's got the hot and sour soup in it," I heard a familiar voice shout. I closed my eyes momentarily. Now I knew how Mary Magdalene felt on Easter Sunday.

"Kate? You in here?" Richard's voice beat him into the room by a couple of seconds. He arrived in the doorway clutching a fragrant plastic carrier bag, a smoking joint in his other hand. He looked around his living room incred¬ulously. "What the hell's going on? What have you done to the place?"

He stepped into the room, followed by a pair of burly neo-punks, each with a familiar Chinese takeaway carrier bag. It was the only remotely normal thing about them. Each wore heavy black work boots laced halfway up their calves, ragged black leggings, and heavy tartan knee-length kilts. Above the waist, they had black collarless shirts with strategic rips held together by kilt pins and Celtic brooches. Across their chests, each had a diagonal tartan sash of the kind worn on television on New Year's Eve by the dancers on those terrible ethnic fantasias the Scottish TV companies broadcast to warm the cockles of their exiles' hearts and make the rest of us throw up into our champagne. The one on Richard's left had bright red hair left long and floppy on top. The sides of his head were stubbled. The other had a permed, rainbow-striped Mohawk. Each was big enough to merit his own map ref¬erence. Mel Gibson would have hired them on the spot for starring roles in Braveheart. Will Alien goggled at the three of them, aghast.

Richard dropped the bag of Chinese food and his jaw as the transformation of the room really sank in. "Jesus, Brannigan, I turn my back for five minutes and you trash the place. And who the hell are you?" he demanded, glowering at Alien.

Alien reassembled his face into something approaching a smile. "I'm Will Alien. From Greenhalgh and Edwards, the monumental masons. About Mr. Barclay's memorial?"

Richard frowned. "Mr. Barclay's memorial? You mean, as in gravestone?"

Alien nodded. "That's not the term we prefer to use, but yes, as in gravestone."

"Mr. Richard Barclay, would that be?"

"That's right."

Richard shook his head in disbelief. He stuck his hand into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a press card with his photograph on it. He thrust it toward Alien. "Do I look dead to you?"

Alien was on his feet, his folder pulled out of my grasp. He threw it into the briefcase, grabbed it, and shouldered past Richard and the two Celtic warriors. "Ah shit," I swore, jumping to my feet and pushing through the door¬way in Alien's wake.

"Come back here, Brannigan, you've got some explain¬ing to do," I heard Richard yell as I reached the door. Alien was sprinting down the path toward the car parking area. I didn't have my car keys on me; the last thing I'd anticipated was a chase. But Alien was my only lead and he was getting away. I had to do something. I ran down the path after him, glad that the only respectable pair of black shoes in my wardrobe had been flat pumps. As he approached a silver Mazda Saloon, the lights flashed and I heard the doors unlock. Alien jumped into the car. The engine started straight off. Another one of the joys of modern technology that makes life simpler for the bad guys. He reversed in a scream of tires and engine, threw the car into